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The Olentangy school board has decided to fire an elementary-school teacher whose teen son
reported a pot-growing operation in the family’s Delaware County basement in August.

Suzanne Van Schaik, 48, a fourth-grade teacher at Cheshire Elementary School, was suspended
without pay as of yesterday while the termination process begins.

Her lawyer plans to challenge the firing today, saying Van Schaik had no idea her husband had
grown marijuana in a locked room at the 5280 Bayside Ridge Dr. home where they lived with their
three children.

“She’s just a classic case of an innocent spouse,” Rob Washburn said yesterday.

Olentangy officials would not release public documents from the district investigation, which
TheDispatch requested yesterday. Spokeswoman Karen Truett said the records would be available
sometime today.

Van Schaik has not been charged with a crime, but in the school board’s resolution to fire her,
the district alleges that she either knew or should have known that the drug was being grown in her
home. It also said deputies found a dozen destroyed marijuana plants in woods behind the home on
Aug. 20.

That night, the teacher’s 16-year-old son reported to the Delaware County sheriff’s office that
his father had been growing marijuana and that his parents had just kicked him out of the
house.

“I believe they’re trying to get rid of it right now,” he told the dispatcher. “There’s
paraphernalia everywhere.”

Officials from the sheriff’s office said they couldn’t discuss the ongoing probe, but an
incident report from that evening says deputies found at least 12 marijuana plants at the family’s
home. It doesn’t name Van Schaik or her husband.

The report lists two crimes, illegal manufacture of drugs and tampering with evidence, but
provides no explanation.

Washburn said Van Schaik’s husband had been growing pot for personal use, to ease pain from
herniated discs in his neck and from surgery to correct the problem. It was a small growing
operation, the lawyer said, hidden in a locked workroom in the family’s basement.

“It’s my understanding that the ventilation for this hidden room was piped into the radon
system,” he said.

Since Aug. 21, Washburn said, Van Schaik has moved with her children out of the home and took a
drug test that found no drug in her system except caffeine.

At a district hearing on Monday, Washburn told officials that Van Schaik is innocent, a 14-year
district employee who should be trusted to keep her job. After a private session on Tuesday
evening, the school board moved to fire her.

Yesterday, the district also referred the case to the Office of Professional Conduct at the
state Department of Education, which might decide whether she keeps her teaching license.

Washburn said that today he plans to request a hearing to contest the termination. The Ohio
Department of Education’s general counsel would appoint an official to hear the case. Washburn said
he will argue that Van Schaik should not be fired. If the state decides to take up the case, he
would argue that she should not be stripped of her state teaching license.

Before Olentangy hired Van Schaik, she worked for the Columbus school district at Cedarwood
Alternative Elementary. She has been a teacher for 26 years and last year earned a $93,000
salary.